Emotional reactions, perceived impact and perceived responsibility mediate the identifiable victim effect, proportion dominance effect and in-group effect respectively

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Highlights

  • Three psychological mechanisms were tested as mediators of three helping effects.

  • The identifiable victim effect was primarily mediated by emotional reactions (especially sympathy).

  • The proportion dominance effect was primarily mediated by perceived impact.

  • The in-group effect was primarily mediated by perceived responsibility.

Abstract

This study investigated possible mediators of the identifiable victim effect (IVE), the proportion dominance effect (PDE), and the in-group effect (IGE) in helping situations. In Studies 1–3, participants rated their emotional reactions (distress and sympathy toward the victims), perceived impact of helping, perceived responsibility to help, and helping motivation toward four versions of a helping situation. Gradually increasing victim identifiability in the helping situations primarily affected emotional reactions and sympathy completely mediated the IVE. Gradually making the reference-group smaller primarily affected perceived impact, and impact completely mediated the PDE. Gradually increasing in-groupness primarily affected perceived responsibility, and responsibility completely mediated the IGE. Study 4 included real monetary allocations and largely replicated the results using a between-subject design. Together, the results shed light on how contextual factors trigger help motivation, and indicate that different helping effects are primarily mediated by different mechanisms.

Introduction

Helping is an inherently social behavior that can be investigated from either a motivational perspective (why do we help?) or a situational perspective (when do we help?). This study integrates these perspectives by connecting Weber’s (1998) theory of decision modes with research on situational differences influencing helping (i.e., helping effects; Loewenstein & Small, 2007). The question of interest is whether different helping effects are primarily mediated by different psychological processes. We expect that the identifiable victim effect (IVE) is primarily mediated by emotional reactions, that the proportion dominance effect (PDE) is primarily mediated by perceived impact, and that the in-group effect (IGE) is primarily mediated by perceived responsibility.

Section snippets

Three psychological mechanisms that promote helping

According to the taxonomy of decision modes suggested by Weber (1998; Weber & Lindemann, 2007) decisions are driven by affect-based, calculation-based, or recognition-based psychological mechanisms. These three decision modes can be applied to most kinds of decisions, but like Ames, Flynn, and Weber (2004) this article focuses on decisions in helping situations.

Affect-based help decisions can be referred to as “helping with the heart”, e.g., when intense emotional reactions elicited by the

Mediators of different helping effects

Although mediation is commonly examined in helping situations, our study is, to our knowledge, the first to systematically explore if different helping effects are primarily mediated by different psychological mechanisms. We focus on three of the most well-known helping effects: (1) the identified victim effect, (2) the proportion dominance effect, (3) the in-group effect.

Common methodology for Studies 1–3

In Study 1–3, we test the hypotheses using a within-subject design with joint evaluation where a helping effect is manipulated in several steps. Participants first read a background story about a certain helping situation. They then read four versions of the helping situation. The only aspect that changes between the versions is directly related to one of the three helping effects (IVE in Study 1, PDE in Study 2, and IGE in Study 3). Participants compare all the versions and, on the following

Method

Sixty (15 women, 45 men, Mage = 21.90, SD = 2.06) Swedish students completed a paper and pen questionnaire. Two male participants who had more than four missing values were excluded.2 Participants read four easily comparable versions of a single helping situation (all versions of all helping situations can be found in the Supplementary material). In the baseline version 1 (statistical victims),

Method

Forty (17 women, 23 men, Mage = 21.80, SD = 2.17) Swedish students participated. One male participant who had more than four missing values was excluded. The design, layout and measured variables were identical to the one used in Study 1, but the helping situation closely resembled the one used in Erlandsson et al. (2014, Study 2) and involved African children suffering from bacterial meningitis and described a vaccine that could save many lives. In the baseline version 1, participants read that

Method

Forty (19 women, 21 men, Mage = 23.48, SD = 2.83) Swedish students participated. One female participant who had more than four missing values was excluded. The design, layout and measured variables were identical to the previous studies, but the helping situation concerned a girl in need of a kidney where the participant was a suitable donor. In baseline version 1, the girl was described as the daughter of a former male classmate of the participant (out-group). In version 2 she was described as the

Study 4

The aim in this study was to replicate the findings from Studies 1–3 by testing the helping effects with a between-group rather than with a within-subject design. This means that each participant only read one of the versions on each helping effect.

General discussion

This article contributes to the field by being the first to systematically test multiple mediators on different helping effects. The results suggest that different helping effects are primarily mediated by different psychological mechanisms. More specifically, primarily emotional reactions (sympathy) mediate the identifiable victim effect (IVE), primarily perceived impact mediates the proportion dominance effect (PDE), and primarily perceived responsibility mediates the in-group effect (IGE).

Conclusions

This article combined the “when” and “why” of helping by investigating if different helping effects are mediated by different psychological mechanisms. The results suggest that the IVE is primarily mediated by emotional reactions (sympathy), that the PDE is primarily mediated by perceived impact and that the IGE is primarily mediated by perceived responsibility. The article emphasizes the separation of different helping effects; the importance of testing different types of psychological

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by grants from Helge Ax:son Johnsons Stiftelse.

We are grateful to Oskar Sundfelt, Fredrik Johansson and Oscar Skoglund for help with data collection and to Larry Curtis for proofreading the manuscript.

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    The first author presented parts of the results during the 34th annual conference of the Society of Judgment and Decision Making in Toronto, November 15–18, 2013.

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